Frank Martin's Interpretation of the Tristan and Isolde Myth

MARTA SZOKA (Łódź) Frank Martin’s Interpretation of the Tristan and Isolde Myth: Following the Trail of a Certain Novel Some people may frown at a juxtaposition of the Tristan and Isolde myth, one of the greatest sources of artistic inspiration in Euro pean culture, and its numerous musical representations with a novel by Charles Morgan, a minor writer known today almost exclusively to English literature scholars. If, however, we assume that the practice of musicology, apart from the analysis of music in terms of purely sonic structures, embraces also critical reflection, then we can put forward a perspective which will - to quote Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert - ‘open up a dialogue with the maker of the work, with his unique inner world, his love, passion and dilemmas, and also the path of perfection charac teristic of him and given to him’.1 I set out to scrutinise Frank Martin’s work in view of certain cul tural and psychological issues, as well as the social aspect of myth. Taken out of its complex context, the music score is forced to be an autonomous organism, and thus the multidimensional sense of art in the modern world becomes forgotten. Bearing an artistic and cultural message, a work of art is a carrier of meanings beyond the author’s in tent - meanings to be reached and understood. Moreover, this process of reaching out toward meaning does not exhaust itself in a single act of cognition, supposed to establish a certain truth once and for all. I would like to adopt here Hans-Georg Gadamer’s premise of the ‘inexhaustibil ity’ of the meaning of art as well as the ever renewed process of its un derstanding.2 1 Zbigniew Herbert, ‘Willem Duyster (1599-1635) albo Dyskretny urok soldateski’ [Willem Duyster, or the Discreet charm of the soldiery], Zeszyty Literackie 68 (1999), 18. 2 Hans-Georg Gadamer, ‘Estetyka i hermeneutyka’ [Aesthetics and hermeneutics], in Rozum, słowo, dzieje [Reason, word and history], trans. Małgorzata Lukasiewicz (Warsaw, 1979). Martin’s oratorio Le Vin herbé was composed in 1938-1841. Initially, Martin wrote only the first part (later entitled ‘Le Philtre’), commis sioned by Robert Blum, choirmaster of the Zürich Madrigalchor. After its success, the composer decided to expand it with two further parts, ‘La Forét du Morois’ and ‘La Mort’, finishing off with a short Prologue and Epilogue. ‘Le Philtre’ thus became the drama’s exposition. Each of the three sections consists of five to seven ‘tableaux’, built independently in respect to form. The very term ‘tableau’ can be seen as suggesting that Martin’s work be located on the borderline between stage music (cham ber opera3) and a contemporary reincarnation of the madrigal. Although some episodes have been given a dramatic quality reminiscent of opera (e.g. I.64), Martin tends rather toward an epic construction. He wanted to create the atmosphere of a medieval epic poem, ‘filled with the quivering of a legendary tone’5 and with a timeless dimension. The limiting of the cast to twelve vocalists and eight instruments (as stipulated in the commission) contributed in effect to the creation of one of the most original oratorios in the literature of this genre. The narra tion is assigned to the chorus, from which the solo parts of the individual dramatis personae (Tristan, Isolde, King Mark, Brangien and others) are taken. But since these roles are interchangeable (there is even a solo narrative part), the distinction between the soloists and the chorus is dissolved. This is one of the fundamental dissimilarities of Le Vin herbé from a traditional opera or oratorio: the lack of leading and secondary parts, with each singer given a mobile set of roles. In group episodes Martin uses three kinds of expressive means: monody, isorhythmic chant and polyphony (this last means is actually used only twice, when con tributing to climax). The solo parts are more expressive and dramatic; their melodic line is more fluctuating and rhythmically varied than that of the purely narrative, descriptive passages. However, despite a seeming modesty of artistic devices, bereft of any showiness, swagger or operatic acrobatics (lack of traditional recitatives and arias), the composer achieved a great intensity of expression. 3 The first stage presentation of Le Vin herbé, directed by Oscar Franz Schuh, was given in August (15, 20, 24, 28) 1948 in Salzburg. The soloists and Wiener Staat- soper choir were conducted by Ferenc Fricsay, set design by Caspar Nehar (cf. Fried- sich Wildgans, ‘Frank Martins “Le Vin herbé” zur szenischen Aufführung bei den Salzburger Festspiellen’, Österreichische Musikzeitschift 3 (1948), 192-196). Le Vin herbé has been staged 27 times in all, mostly in Germany. On the composer’s scepticism towards the idea of staging the oratorio, see Kerstin Schüssler, Frank Martins Musik- theater. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Oper im 20. Jahrhundert (Kassel, 1996). 4 Roman numerals refer to the part, Arabic numerals to the tableau. 5 Willi Schuh, Schweizer Musik der Gegenwart (Zurich, 1948), 133. Seven string instruments (two violins, two violas, two cellos, one dou ble bass) and a piano make up a ‘chamber ensemble’ which unobtrusively accompanies the voices and helps to create the moods of successive tab leaux. Of the few purely instrumental passages, particularly notable are the solo introductions to certain sections (e.g. 1.3, 1.5, II.3, III.5, III.6) and also the mimetic passages (illustration of the movement of waves in 1.2 and 1.6) and symbolic passages (e.g. solo violin in a dodecaphonic series attributed to love as a signifying structure6). In deciding on such ho mogenous, modest instrumental forces, Martin deliberately relinquished the possibility of using the means of so-called ‘painting with sound’, which is so characteristic of works of the literary-musical genre and pro gramme music. The absence of the symphonic element, different inter preta tional approach (epic), lack of grandiosity, controlled emotionalism - all closer to the Gallic than the Germanic spirit - make Martin’s work an antithesis of Wagnerian drama. In the same way as Martin’s spiritual attitude was far-removed from Richard Wagner, Le Vin herbé and Tris tan und Isolde are different not only formally, but also psychologically. The opposition comes mainly from the underlying literary material and a dissimilar reading and interpretation of the myth: the grand myth of love, which has produced the most perfect epiphanies in Western lyric output. The great impact of the Tristan and Isolde myth - of the fatal love, purified by pain and sanctified by death - has been repeatedly evidenced from the first oral Celtic sources up to the masterpieces of the twentieth century. It is a triumphant apotheosis of love ‘together with the whole immensity of its lust, lies, sublimity and debasement, worship and dis honour, happy intoxication and tragic misery’.7 Wagner’s work opened a new chapter in the myth’s interpretation, being itself a model realisation of such an interpretation, since it appeals to the listener through the im pulse of Dionysian music. ‘Vermöge der Musik gemessen sich die Leiden schaften selbst’ [By the power of music, the passions take pleasure in themselves], as we read in Nietzsche.8 As the least material of all the media of ideas, music alone is able to express directly the mystery and spontaneity of Eros. This Nietzschean belief is backed by Soren Kier 6 An extensive discussion of compositional issues relating to this work, including the dodecaphonic technique and the question of leitmotif, can be found in Chapter 2 (‘Le Vin herbe - opus magnum’) of my book Język muzyczny Franka Martina [The musical language of Frank Martin] (Łódź, 1995). 7 Tadeusz Zeleński-Boy, Introduction, in Joseph Bedier, Dzieje Tristana i Izoldy [The romance of Tristan and Isolde] (Poznań, 1949), 9. 8 Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘Jenseits von Gut und Böse’, in Sämtliche Werke, vol. 2 (Berlin, 1980), 92. kegaard. In his famous essay on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Don Gio vanni, he points to music as the only medium capable of presenting the ‘sensuous in its elemental originality’. We read there: In der Skulptur läßt sie sich nich darstellen denn sie ist an und für sich etwas Innerliches. Ebensowenig läßt sich malen, denn sie läßt sich nicht in einen bestimmten Umriß fassen, da sie in all ihrem lyrischen Schwung eine Kraft, ein Sturm, eine Leidenschaft ist, und das nicht in einem einzelnen Moment, sondern in einer Succession von Momenten.9 [It cannot be represented in sculpture, because it is something internal, in and for itself; it cannot be painted, for it cannot be fixed within definite contours. In its lyricism, it is a force, a wind, impatience, passion, etc., yet in such a way that it exists not in one instant but in a succession of instants]. There is a point here. It is in music (apart, of course, from literature) that the Tristan myth has evoked the grandest responses. One can speak of more or less significant links to it in Richard Strauss, Arnold Schön berg, Olivier Messiaen, Mieczysław Karłowicz, Karol Szymanowski, Tadeusz Baird and many others, up to Claude Debussy (his Pelleas et Melisande as Tristan ä rebours). On the other hand, the history of art has not noted any major paintings or sculptures beyond mere illustrations incorporated in successive editions of the story of Tristan and Isolde. The popularity of the Tristan myth was further reinforced by its re construction in Le Roman de Tristan et Iseult by Joseph Bedier, pub lished in 1900. Bedier (1864-1938), a specialist in French medieval lit erature, reconstructed the whole of the Tristan and Isolde legend on the basis of all known versions. He found that forty out of sixty episodes ap pear in two or more versions.10 This led him to the conviction that in all probability there must have had existed a pre-poem about Tristan, of which the twelfth- and thirteenth-century versions are variants, and this prompted him to give his scholarly hypothesis an artistic form.

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